Dead at Daybreak

by Deon Meyer

  There was silence in the room, only the wind through the trees and the sound of Kara-An’s car driving off. Another BMW, he guessed. The younger woman’s universal cure for penis envy. The Mercedes would come later, at about fifty-five, when she no longer wanted to look young, just dignified. He looked at Hope Beneke. She had drawn up her legs and was hugging them, her face almost hidden. As if she knew it was all over.

  It was.

  Because if Kara-An Rousseau thought she could blackmail him, she was out of her mind.

  The silence between them expanded. Eventually Hope got up. “Just do me one favor,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her.

  “Don’t bring the advance back again. Keep it.”

  She walked to the door, opened it, and walked out without closing it behind her.

  He felt his temper rising. Her whole attitude insinuated that the fuckup was his fault. As if Kara-An’s absurd demands were reasonable. The “curing” of the doctor had nothing to do with the Wilna van As issue. It was Kara-An who wanted to connect the two, who wanted to make the consequences of one dependent on the other. Which was so unreasonable that one didn’t need a law degree to work it out. It was like…

  He felt the cold wind against his back, got up to close the door, saw Hope’s BMW moving down the gravel road, his mother riding up, reining in next to the car. Horse riding in this weather—it was going to rain in a minute, the clouds a blackish gray, the wind sharp. They were too far away; he couldn’t even hear their voices. What did they have to say to each other? The rear lights of the BMW went on, and Hope turned the car and followed his mother to the big house.

  He slammed the door.

  She must leave his mother alone. She mustn’t interfere.

  What did they have to say to each other?

  Fuck it. He had laundry to do.

  He was hanging up wet clothes in the bathroom when he heard the door open. He knew it was his mother.

  “Where are you, Zet?”

  “Here.”

  She came in, still in her riding clothes, her nose and ears red with cold.

  “You mustn’t ride in this weather, Ma.”

  “You can’t hang up a shirt like that. Wait, let me do it.” She lifted the shirt off the shower rail. “Bring me a hanger.”

  Obediently he walked to the bedroom to fetch a hanger.

  “No wonder your clothes are in such a state. You must learn to look after them.”

  “Ma, I’m thirty-eight…”

  “One wouldn’t say so if one had been a doctor last night. Shift that basket nearer. I’m going to put this stuff in the tumble dryer.”

  “Ma…”

  “Zet, you’re a man. That’s why I overlook many things, but sooner or later you’ll have to buy decent stuff. You can’t do your laundry by hand for the rest of your life.”

  He dragged the laundry basket toward her. She took the wet laundry from the bath, put it in the basket.

  “But I’m not going to iron it.”

  “No, Ma.”

  “What did you do last night?”

  “It sounds as if you already know.”

  She didn’t reply, merely filled the basket with laundry.

  “Pick up the basket and bring it home. I want to talk to you.” She turned and walked out. He knew that straight-backed walk. He hadn’t seen it for a long time.

  He didn’t want to talk to her about these things.

  “Fuck,” he said quietly, and picked up the basket.

  A fine rain was falling. The wind suddenly dropped as he walked to the big house. The house his mother had built. After she had had the original one demolished because she didn’t want to live in such a monstrosity, a Spanish villa, South African–style. She watched the bulldozers do their work and later told him it had been one of her most pleasurable experiences in the past decade.

  She could have bought a smallholding next to the Berg River somewhere between Paarl and Stellenbosch—she had the money—but she had chosen this one, on the flat stretch behind Blouberg, in the scrubland between the sea and the N7 “so that I can go to the mountains when I need them,” whatever that might mean. And had her house built, simple white lines, large windows, spacious rooms.

  And the stables.

  He had been surprised by the horses.

  “I’ve always wanted to,” she said.

  He lived there in one of the original buildings, perhaps an old tenant farmer’s house, that he had halfheartedly restored at her insistence when he didn’t go back to work.

  He carried the basket into the kitchen, where she was waiting impatiently. He saw the tray next to the sink, empty coffee mugs, two of them, and rusks in a bowl. His mother and Hope Beneke.

  Intimate.

  She opened the door of the tumble dryer, loaded the machine.

  “You know I’ve never said anything, Zatopek.”

  “Ma?” The use of his full name wasn’t a good sign.

  “For five years I’ve said nothing.” She straightened, stretched, her hands on her hips, pressed the buttons of the machine, pulled a chair away from the large stinkwood table, and sat down.

  “Sit down, Zatopek.”

  He gave a deep sigh and sat down at the table. The tumble dryer increased its speed and sang its monotonous tune in the room.

  “I said nothing out of respect for you. As an adult. And because I don’t know everything. I don’t know what happened that evening with Nagel…”

  “Ma.”

  She held up her hand, eyes closed.

  Memories flooded him, his mother in her role as disciplining parent. He knew the mannerisms so well, but it had been so many years. He saw her as she had been in Stilfontein, saw the erosion of age, and compassion filled him: she had suddenly grown so old.

  “I must do something, Zatopek. I must say something. You’re my child. Your age cannot change that. But I don’t know what to say. It’s been five years. And… you can’t get over it.”

  “I’m over it, Ma.”

  “You’re not.”

  He said nothing.

  “My mother believed in emotional blackmail, Zatopek. She would’ve sat here now and asked, Do you know you’re breaking a mother’s heart? Don’t you care about my feelings? I’ll never do that to you. How everything makes me feel has nothing to do with the issue. And to give you a sermon won’t help, either, because you’re an intelligent man. You know that the sense one makes of life, the amount you grow as a human being, is in your own hands. You know you have choices.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “And one of the choices is to see a psychologist, Zatopek.”

  He looked at his hands.

  “As I have it from Hope, there is another choice you have to exercise today.”

  “I’m not going to be involved in that stupid blackmail, Ma.”

  “Do the right thing, Zet. That’s all I ask.”

  “The right thing?”

  “Yes, my child, the right thing.” She looked at him, her gaze, her eyes, intense. He looked away.

  She got up. “I’m going to have a bath. You have a great deal to think about.”

  You can’t get over it.

  He lay stretched out on his bed, his hands behind his head, briefly aware that this bed, this position, represented 40 to 50 percent of his time in the past few years. His mother’s words in his head—she had unleashed the hounds again. She didn’t even know what “it” was. She thought (as his colleagues and friends had thought then, when they still cared) that “it” meant exaggerated self-blame about the death of Nagel. Because he had missed his target in that life-changing moment, and the suspect, the murderer of seventeen prostitutes, the Red Ribbon Executioner, had hit Nagel once, twice. Nagel, who dropped without a sound, blood and tissue against the wall, a moment caught in his memory forever. And then he hit the target, from fear, not revenge, from fear of dying, and he hit the target, over and over and over and over, suddenly the top marksman for the first time in his life. Saw the
Executioner staggering back, drop, fired until his Z88 was empty, crept to Nagel, faceless Nagel, cradled the shattered head in his hands. Nagel, who still breathed, each halting breath spraying blood over his white shirt. He saw life leaking out of Nagel and screamed to the heavens, a deep animal sound, because in that moment he knew with absolute, overwhelming certainty that nothing would ever be the same again, the sound erupting from the center of his body, from his very essence, as he roared to the sky.

  The others found him like that, on his knees with Nagel’s shattered head in his hands, Nagel’s blood on his clothes, and the tears running down his cheeks, and they thought he was crying about Nagel and comforted him and loosened his fingers and led him away and comforted him with deep admiration for his loyalty, for his professional love for a comrade, supported him in the days and weeks that followed and, when eventually he said he wasn’t coming back, enfolded him in their understanding: he had been too deeply hurt, too traumatized, it happened, they understood, it happened and it was a good thing, it showed policemen also had feelings, he testified to that.

  He had deceived them. Them and his mother.

  The truth, the whole truth, lay deeper, far deeper, that moment in the alleyway merely the tip of the iceberg, the bloated body of deceit hidden under the sea of lies.

  But he had recovered from “it.” Worked through “it.” Found himself on the other side, systematically, two, almost three years later, when the pain of the truth was contained and only self-knowledge remained. His self-knowledge and the extrapolation, that nothing mattered, that no one mattered, that all were animals, manipulative primitive beings who struggled for survival under the thin, artificial layer of civilization.

  “It” changed him—that was what his mother didn’t understand. And what Hope Beneke didn’t understand. Gave him an insight that they didn’t have.

  Everyone was evil. Most of them didn’t know it yet.

  And now his mother wanted him to do the right thing.

  The right thing was to survive. To make certain that no one fucked with you.

  The doctors.

  Nagel had still lived in the ambulance, in the hospital.

  They worked on him behind closed doors and came out and with a shrug of their shoulders said no, he didn’t have a chance, explained his injuries with big words, those fucking big words with which they reduced you from human being to patient, big words to explain the shattered head and the hole in the chest. But they saved the Red Ribbon Executioner, took Van Heerden’s lead out of him and fastened him to their machines, pumped fluids into him, sewed and closed and let him live, and Nagel died in that cold, white-tiled place, the last life going out of his eyes, and he had stood outside with the man’s blood on his shirt and wanted to scream because he had to drive to…

  The tip of the iceberg.

  And now his mother wanted him to do the right thing.

  The right thing was to say to Kara-An Rousseau, Fuck you and your petty show of power. I won’t be manipulated. And to tell Hope Beneke that her good fight was useless, the issue was dead, and Wilna van As would survive without a million, life would go on, and a hundred years from now no one would even know about the existence of such insignificant souls.

  Nothing he did would make a difference.

  Except, maybe, putting Kara-An Rousseau in her place.

  She wasn’t the only one who could play at that game.

  But to what purpose?

  His mother and Hope Beneke. Probably had a nice chat about him over the coffee and rusks.

  Odd that they’d found each other so quickly from here, down the road.

  Just a moment or two’s conversation at the BMW and suddenly a visit.

  Strange.

  And now his mother expected.

  The one person whom he really owed.

  There was only one thing to do.

  Deceive.

  “Kara-An, this is Hope,” she said on the telephone.

  “Hi.”

  “I would like to know why you did it.”

  A laugh sounded at the other end. “I didn’t think you’d understand, Hope.”

  “I’m prepared to try.”

  “With due respect, Hope, you’re out of your league.”

  “My league is Wilna van As. She has nothing to do with the latest developments.”

  “It sounds as if you don’t think our Mike is going to accept the offer.”

  “Please, Kara-An.”

  “I’m not the one you should beg, angel.”

  She suddenly didn’t know what to say.

  “I have to go. There’s someone at the front door. Strength to your elbow, Hope.” And the line went dead.

  “What do you really want?” he asked as she opened the door.

  For a moment there was astonishment; then she smiled. “Come in, Zatopek van Heerden. What a wonderful surprise.” She closed the door behind him, pulled him roughly toward her, put her hands behind his head, and kissed him hard on the mouth, her fingers pulling his hair, her body full of little urgent movements pressing him against the door, and then he shoved her away and said, “Fuck you,” and she stood in front of him, her lipstick smudged, and she gasped and she laughed, and he said, “You’re sick.”

  “I knew you would understand.”

  “And bad.”

  “Just like you. But stronger. Much stronger.”

  “I have a counteroffer.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fuck the doctor. He can lay a charge. This is just between the two of us.”

  “What’s with you and doctors, Zatopek?”

  “I’ll give you what you want. For the publicity. Purely for the publicity.”

  “But only when it’s all over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “No.”

  “And if the story of your life isn’t all I want?”

  “You want me to hurt you, Kara-An.”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw you last night.”

  “I know.”

  “You need help.”

  She laughed once, a single barking sound that filled the entrance hall. “And you’re going to help me, Zatopek van Heerden?”

  “Do you accept my counteroffer?”

  “On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “If you shove me away again…”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t hold back, Van Heerden. Let all that rage out.”

  26.

  Sometime during the routine academic years, I took part, late one night, in one of those senseless conversations that people have when they’ve had just enough to drink to lose their embarrassment at talking utter nonsense. The others taking part have long been forgotten, the proposer of the theory a mere shadow. But the subject was fate—and the possibility of parallel universes.

  Just suppose, the argument had started, that reality forked, like a road, every time you made a major decision. Because you generally have two choices, this would cause a split in the universe, an option between broad and narrow roads.

  Because difficult decisions were often made on a fragile balance of possibilities, in which the minutest of minute reasons could disturb the knife-edge equilibrium.

  And supposing you and your world continued in both realities, together with all the others you had already created with your choices. In each parallel existence, you lived with the results of your decision.

  It was an amusing game, a quasi-intellectual exercise, a rich resource for the writer of science fiction, but it haunted me for years.

  Especially after Baby Marnewick so suddenly intruded into my conscience again.

  It began with two articles in the same issue of Law Enforcement about the budding disciplines of the profiling and “signature” identification of serial killers in the United States. One was by the director of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, the other by a senior detective in the office of the public prosecutor in Seattle, Washington. (Both contri
butors would later become legendary in their own right.)

  On a professional level, the contents of the articles were revolutionary and dramatic: a criminological leap that eventually narrowed the gap between applied psychology and practical policing. But for me the experience of reading them was far more personal than academic because the facts, the modus operandi, the examples on which both articles based their arguments, were a blueprint of the death of Baby Marnewick. They made our dead neighbor rise up out of her grave, shook loose the memories and paraded them in front of my consciousness with a fanfare.

  It made my life’s predictable path take an unforeseen direction.

  And now I’ll have to lecture you because in the subsequent years I learned that the emotions that serial killers unleash often lead to false perceptions and popular views that are seldom rooted in reality.

  The first thing one must understand is the difference between serial killers and mass murderers. The former are the Ted Bundys of this world, tragically damaged people who kill one victim after another in more or less the same way. They are, almost without exception, men, their targets usually women (unless they are homosexual, like Jeffrey Dahmer) and their most important psychological motivation is a total inability to make an impression socially—although I say this with great hesitation because, by trying to put it in a nutshell, I’m as guilty as the mass media of generalization and one-dimensional explanation of a far more complex phenomenon.

  In contrast, mass murderers are those who will climb into the bell tower of a university and start shooting wildly. Or such a killer may be a White Wolf who does the same on a street corner—in contrast to the repeated, planned stalking of single, helpless victims by the serial killer.

  Mass murderers are the shooting stars of daylight who, in one moment of flaming evil, swing Death’s scythe, are usually quickly caught, and finally leave innumerable questions unanswered.